A Blog on Coordinating Suits, Shirts, Ties, and Squares.

You dont have to spend a million to look like a million. Growing up that was a commercial from some thrift shop in the city. (yeah, they actually advertised on television, go figure). Having been away for a the week for some Holidays I returned to a request of another wedding guest. More toned down than up, a navy suit with white shirt and could I recommend a tie to go with it.

After a back and forth exchange, the impression I got was that was that optimally this tie which is actually blue and not grey in real life would have been perfect. But I also got the impression and quite concur that do you really have to spend 175 for a Marinella if you are just the guest and might not wear this tie again unless it was another similar occasion?

Here are some ideas in the light blue theme which are bright enough and wont have you taking our a second mortgage to pay for them. A square was optional so I used the tried and true classic white linen, always acceptable and elegant.

In keeping with the theme of the post I went from most expensive to least, and incidentally I think the last is the best option.

This cotton silk blend has a wonderful sheen to it with its asymetrical fold is a heavy tie. The twill weave of the tie gives a lovely texture as well.

This 4 fold is quite heavy as well and the netted weave makes this a delicate tie. the satin stripe dresses it up a bit.

Textured as well but not as heavy, the dark navy squares bring it all together. perhaps not dressy enough for our needs though.

Here, the white in the tie dresses this one up and gives a festive and cheerful appearance while the pin dots keep it from being too bright.

I have always like the marbleized nature of this weave. Its busy without actually having a design!

Recognising that in that last post confusing brown we introduced some very earth tone combinations i.e. the brown with the green stripe shirt, I wanted to try and pull a bit away from being confused with a tree by bringing in a light blue and some other bright colors. True, that blues and reds would technically qualify as “earth tones” but they arent quite something that you would expect to see up in a tree…

Here is the shirt/Suit in question, Brown for Bark, Green for leaves (incidentally most of the shirts pictured below and in the preceeding post were Hickey Freeman His First shirts that I borrowed from our Kids Shop…) Certainly somewhat treelike:

Throwing in some Light Blue in the tie and red in the square (Speckled with Blue and trimmed with Green mind you) which IMO works well will give you this look:

Which is the sum of these parts:

Away from the blue tie and with a brown tie to complement the suit your look will be this, a nice look:

Moving somewhat away from the darkish Green shirt we use another shirt that we highlighted last post. This has some purple and some green in it on an off white field and with the same square and green tie (now that we have broken away from the dark green we can afford the green tie) we get a look like this:

Here the shirt and tie match well together and come back to the suit in complementary colors.

Incidentally its the sum of these parts. As you can see, there is NOTHING here that doesnt coordinate.

I also put it together with another patterned green tie and to be honest I find the sage color in this tie a little too “meh” in this combination , not standing out enough against the shirt so while the tie in and of itself is nice its not enough here.

Finally, coming fully away from the green shirt we bring yet another shirt from yesterdays post which in and of itself brings out what we have been saying all along, Brown and Blue go really well together. Coupled with the Satin fielded Rectangular patterns tie you get this look:

Swapping out the red square for a navy and golden brown (still not on the site yet) will give you this:

Which is the sum of these parts:

As a final note its important to mention that in earthy combinations like the ones above, skin tone i.e. complexion will play a massive role.

At request (yes, we welcome your requests) I was asked to match some conservative ties to a navy suit/white shirt. Square not being worn due to the interview. Of course there are much more conservative (to be read, “boring”) colors for an interview but the feel that I got from the interviewee was that he wanted a color similar to the light blue tie in pic 1.

Here is what I came up with (one I know is not all that conservative but what the heck).

I will just post them all for now and leave comment for you the reader. Havent now got the time to comment or link the ties, I will get to that later.

And the not so conservative (not due to color but due to size of the stripes)